This year's co-production event, Cartoon Forum, was bigger than ever. The European animation industry gathered September 19 — 22, 2001 beneath the Alps in Garmish-Partenkirchen in the German southern state of Bavaria. Since the first annual Cartoon Forum in Lanzarote, Spain in 1990, the number of participants has steadily grown. More than 700 people participated in this year's edition; 103 of them from TV channels and 162 were distributors or other investors.

This reflects the changes in the European TV market. The expansion of new TV channels has been rapid in the last ten years and is still going on with the brave new world of digital television to come. With more and more channels, there is a more and more precisely targeted audience for each -- at least in the hopes of the TV companies. Even though the amount of airtime for animation has been growing rapidly, the production revenues haven't. In other words: more screenings but less money per screening.

One of the many conferences that occurred during the Cartoon Forum was this discussion about animation production in Germany. All event photos © Cartoon-AEFA. Photographer: Tim Leborgne.

Markets are split between the primary market of big channels with generally sufficient compensation and the secondary market of mainly cable and satellite channels with very low price levels. One producer told me how he sometimes refuses to sell to this secondary market. The payment promised does not even cover the price of the office work needed to sell and transport the programme. When a programme has received some European or other public support, every sale has to be reported, which again means more paper work to complete.

Producers have to be much more aware of the complex situation in the animation market, especially due to growing feature animation production. As GEO Gert Müntefering from German Bavaria Kinder channel said in a panel discussion about the German TV market: "We have to be realists in the market; one can loose nice money with feature animation or earn lousy money with TV serials."

Longer Series Are Here
Projects were also longer than ever. One-time TV specials have given way for bigger and longer series. The 79 projects presented had a total length of 499 hours and 50 minutes, some 63 hours more than last year's Visby Cartoon Forum. The figures, however, are only numbers. "The Soviet Union also had impressive figures -- steel production was growing year by year," said one participant. "The European Union seems to have the same kind of love for growth, at least on paper to show the politicians."